Normally when I’m in the midst of a cold, cold January, blueberries are the furthest thing from my mind, but they’ve actually been on really good sales at my grocery store this week, plus I got a challenge to make a blueberry recipe from the US Highbush Blueberry Council! Challenge accepted. Of course, challenge accepted as long as the recipe is easy, like this easy blueberry tart. (It even has “easy” in the name.)

Also, I already had all the ingredients on hand (besides the blueberries, which were easy to acquire, even in the dead of winter).

Now this is me we’re talking about, so you know I’m not going to make my own pie crust. And I ran into a slight problem with the pie crust I had…

Yeah, that baby was Best By December 29, 2013, so, like, a month ago. And it wasn’t frozen either. I just figured it would keep in my refrigerator, pretty much forever. But I unwrapped it and it didn’t stink, and I unrolled it and it didn’t look weird or crumble in my hands or anything, so I went ahead and used it. I know. I live on the edge.

So for the recipe, all you do is mix the blueberries with some simple ingredients…

… which makes them look like this:

I felt sort of bad coating them in sugar-sludge because they were so pretty before that, but I figured it would all look fine once it was baked.

A word to the wise: blueberries are very round and rolly. If, in the process of stirring them, one manages to leap out of the bowl, you may never find it. Or it may roll under the cabinet and you figure you’ll pick it up later, but then your dog eats it, and you have to run look up if blueberries are poisonous to dogs. (They’re not.)

Then you just stick them in the center of your crust and fold up the edges.

Annnd bake. You can do all sorts of stuff while your tart bakes for 55 minutes to an hour. Wink wink, nudge nudge. (What? I was talking about laundry and bathroom cleaning. That’s what I did.)

Mine leaked a little in the oven, but to be fair, if I’m somewhere hot for an hour, I leak a little, too. The leak did not affect the taste, and it tasted damn good, guys. I think blueberry tarts are going to be a winter staple around here, because they’re warm and comforting, and also because they make me forget that I will probably have to navigate around black ice on my commute tomorrow morning because it’s the freakin’ middle of winter.

Want to win a $75 gift card? Show your love of blueberries!

If you’re a blueberry lover like I am, you could win a $75 gift card just by showing the blueberry love. In order to win, you must:

I’m mostly glad to learn I can still use the pie crust that’s been in my fridge since thanksgiving. It’s just been sitting there, taunting me. (I didn’t do all the things, don’t pick me for the contest. I suck)

I did it! I did it! I hope the $75 gift card isn’t a gift card for, like, cat litter (especially since I don’t have a cat!). But I figured, hey, it’s a free gift card! BTW, I think I might have to try this tart, cuz it looks fantabulous. Oh, and if I win, you can get me at my gmail account — amandal.perry (do you like how I cleverly avoided being picked up by alien email spambots? :P)

Done!!! Excited and now hungry for blue berries…which, incidentally, are what my various appendages look like in the subzero conditions here :/
my yahoo email is Bitsy_29 followed by the yahoo.com!
Love the PINTESTER

I did all those things! Which means I signed up for Twitter. And pinterest. And facebook. But damn if I won’t turn myself over to social media for $75. I’m poor. #gradschoolproblems Contact: cg133@duke.edu